Indian women’s stories of violence and ultimate resilience touch business students, professor

Women in India who have been scarred and disfigured by acid attacks have inspired FIU Business students and their professor.

David Wernick annually travels to India with International Business Honors Society members to conduct a service-learning project. Typically, they meet with women’s craft collectives to suggest ideas for increasing sales. This year, they worked with a group of brave women who have journeyed back into society after experiencing horrific crimes.

In India, 250–300 acid attacks are reported every year, although an advocacy organization says the actual number could exceed 1,000. Acid attacks by men are often an act of retribution when a woman rejects a marriage proposal or sexual advance. 

The FIU group visited a cafe staffed by attack survivors. The women run “Sheroes Hangout,” part of a chain of five coffee shops established to give jobs to those whose lives have been upended by violence.

"Visiting Sheroes was a life-changing experience,” said student Brianna Page, a business management and international business major. “Every woman is a testament to resilience.”

The name of the chain of is a combination of “she” and “heroes” and highlights the women’s courageous act of showing their disfigured faces in public. The Chhanv Foundation opened the first of the for-profit cafes in 2014 in Agra, near the Taj Mahal. The founders sought to empower victims and remove the stigma associated with acid-related violence.

“The survivors of these attacks have many needs. They need medical care, and therapy and a safe place to live. But they also need a job to support themselves and that was impetus for the cafes,” Wernick said. “It’s ingenious how [the founders] are using the tools of business to achieve a social mission and transform lives.”

The students have since begun to identify ways to collaborate with Sheroes Hangout cafes. And Wernick turned the powerful experience of meeting both the group of journalists who initiated the enterprise and its active employees into a case study that might serve as an example for others seeking to make a difference through business. Along with professors from India and Ireland, he wrote up their story as an entry in a global case writing competition organized at the University of Michigan. The researchers explored how the Chhanv Foundation could scale the innovative social enterprise.

FIU Business doctoral student Jannik Pesch also contributed to the work. “The focus of the case is to show how businesses can have an impact and drive social change,” he said. “Businesses have the power. People involved in business are some of the biggest influencers. They have an exponentially higher impact in funding philanthropic activities and creating impactful activities.”

Adds Wernick, “One of the central questions is how the founders, who have no background in business, can grow this enterprise.”

The case study, which was written to be used in undergraduate and MBA classes, provides basic information about the initiative and its purpose with the goal of spurring students to consider ways to expand the cafes. Suggestions are included – among them adding menu items and offering take-out/delivery service, selling branded merchandise and opening in additional cities that cater to tourists – so that students can begin to devise strategies.

The case study won second place in the competition, and the team donated its $5,000 award to the Chhanv Foundation.